Chaat Masala Substitutes: Rebuild the Sour, Salty, Sulfurous Blend

Chaat masala is sour, salty and faintly eggy all at once, and most other spice blends cover neither the sour nor the salty. The good news is that it’s only a handful of pantry items, so the best substitute is a quick homemade batch: amchur, black salt, roasted cumin and black pepper. Short on some of those? One cook’s 3:1:1 mix of amchur, pepper and black salt covers the two jobs that matter most, and lemon juice can stand in for the amchur on fruit chaat and salads.

Quick answer

How the ratios on this page are labeled

Every ratio carries one of four labels.

• Computed: based on a measurable physical relationship.
• Attributed: a named source publishes this ratio. We quote it as theirs.
• Disputed: named sources give different answers to the same swap. You get each one, side by side.
• Method: our starting point, based on how the two compare. Taste and adjust.

The recipes and the 3:1:1 mix below come from named cooks. None of them says how much of the mix replaces a given amount of store-bought chaat masala, so every swap amount here is just a starting point.

If you have the ingredients: make your own

This is the real substitute, since chaat masala is only a handful of pantry items. It’s a finishing seasoning for chaat, the family of Indian snacks that includes sev puri and papri chaat, and for cut fruit and vegetables. Amchur (dried mango powder) brings the tang, black salt brings the classic chatpata aroma, and roasted cumin and black pepper add warmth and bite. There’s no fixed formula. Three published recipes agree on amchur, black salt, cumin and pepper, and go their own ways on the rest:

These are three cooks’ blends, not measurements of one product, so we show them side by side and don’t combine them. Kurian’s is heavy on black salt, a full tablespoon to a tablespoon of amchur. Parmar’s goes lighter on salt and adds a good amount of coriander. Pick whichever sounds closest to the brand you usually buy.

Ratio (Attributed recipes, amount): Use your homemade blend in the same amount as the store-bought chaat masala the recipe calls for, then taste. If you roast the cumin, stop as soon as it’s fragrant. Tarla Dalal warns against burning it.³

If you have amchur, pepper and salt

The 3:1:1 mix

Food writer Rachna Parmar’s quickest substitute is amchur with pepper and black salt: “3 parts amchur powder and 1 part each pepper powder and salt.”⁴ It covers the two jobs that matter most, sour and salty.

Amchur is where chaat masala’s tang comes from. Black salt supplies the sulfurous note cooks are after. Regular salt will season the dish but won’t give you that smell. What the mix is missing is roasted cumin. If you have some, a little ground roasted cumin brings it closer to the published recipes above.

Ratio (Attributed mix, amount): The proportions are Parmar’s.⁴ Use the same amount of the mix as the chaat masala in your recipe, and taste before adding more salt.

If you have no amchur

Lemon juice over cumin, pepper and black salt

Parmar suggests mixing cumin powder, pepper and black salt, then adding a sprinkle of lemon juice.⁴ Lemon brings sourness and liquid, so this suits fruit chaat, salads and dishes that are already moist. Skip it on dry snacks that should stay crisp.

Ratio (Method): Season with the dry mix first, then add lemon a few drops at a time and taste.

Anardana powder with salt and pepper

Parmar also suggests dried pomegranate powder (anardana) mixed with black salt or regular salt.⁴ It brings a darker, fruitier sourness than amchur. For more, see anardana.

Ratio (Method): Start with the same amount as the chaat masala, and add more salt or pepper to taste.

If you only have other spice blends

Garam masala

People often suggest garam masala as a stand-in, but it does a different job. A basic Bengali garam masala is just cardamom, cinnamon and cloves.⁵ It has none of chaat masala’s sourness or salt, and its sweet, warm spices don’t appear in the chaat masala recipes above.

Ratio (Method): If you have to use it, use much less than the recipe’s chaat masala, and add amchur or lemon plus black salt for the sour and salty notes. Taste as you go. See chaat masala vs. garam masala.

Curry powder

The USDA’s purchasing specification for curry powder lists turmeric, coriander, fenugreek, cinnamon, cumin, black pepper, ginger and cardamom.⁶ It shares cumin and pepper with chaat masala, but the turmeric will turn your food yellow, and like garam masala it has nothing sour or salty.

Ratio (Method): As with garam masala, use a small amount and add the sour and salty parts separately.

What isn’t known

• No source we found says how much of any homemade mix replaces a given amount of store-bought chaat masala. The published recipes vary widely in how much black salt they use.
• We found no analysis of a finished chaat masala blend, so we can’t compare a homemade mix with a commercial one by composition.
• Without black salt, nothing here reproduces the sulfur note. We haven’t looked at substitutes for black salt itself; see black salt.

Related

• Chaat masala and chaat masala vs. garam masala
• Mango powder (amchur) and mango powder substitutes
• Black salt and black salt substitutes
• Cumin, black pepper and asafoetida
• Anardana and anardana substitutes
• Garam masala and curry powder